Exploring the History, Literature, and Culture of the Tar Heel State

Worlds That Might Have Been

Recently we found in the stacks a “Parking Facilities Study” for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill done by the Office of the University Engineer in 1961. Parking is a sore subject for most of us, and for those of us working in Wilson Library the parking proposal in this study looked like a little bit of heaven. The proposal was for a parking deck to be built on the south side of South Road, behind and to the west of the Bell Tower. The deck would be below ground with its top at about ground level for the Tower. The top was to be landscaped and planted with bushes and shrubs and even a tennis court. This conjured up visions of walking out of Wilson at the end of a spring day and taking a short stroll over to our car in the new deck. But before driving home we might take a walk around the deck’s roof garden or, for the more athletically inclined, perhaps a game of tennis. Dream on.